Just as Călin Georgescu, the Romanian far-right politician and agronomist, was about to file his candidacy for the rescheduled Presidential Election, armed with well over the 200,000 signatures needed to qualify, on February 26, 2025; he was stopped by the Police and taken to the General Prosecutor’s Office. After questioning, he was indicted on various charges, including “actions against the constitutional order”, spreading false information, initiating or constituting a fascist, racist and xenophobic organisation, etc.

One may recall that Georgescu had won the Presidential Election held on November 24, 2024, with 23% of votes. Rather than risk the victory of such a pro-Russian and anti-NATO candidate in the second round, the pro-EU authorities, at the request of the European Commission (EC), simply declared the results of the election null and void, with the flimsy argument that Russia had carried out cyber manipulations on his behalf and proceeded to cancel the second round. Fresh elections are now scheduled for May (2025) and Georgescu is leading in the polls, with a comfortable advantage over the candidate of the ruling coalition.

The Prosecutor’s Office eventually released Georgescu after questioning, but he is barred from leaving the country, making social media posts or appearing on television for 60 days (until just before the first round of the new Presidential Election)! At the Munich Security Conference held in February 2025, US Vice President James David Vance publicly chastised the EU for suppressing free speech and political opposition groups, specifically bringing up the case of the cancelled elections in Romania.

In Hungary, the government is demanding that the institutions of the EU and the EC disclose which NGOs they are funding, and the amount received by those NGOs. Hungarian Minister for EU Affairs János Bóka was quite clear on the problem, as he wrote on his X account on February 25: “In recent weeks, it has become clear that NGO networks, previously financed by the USAID and now by the EC, are engaging in activities aimed at undermining public trust in institutions and destabilising political systems. EU citizens and member states have the right to know which NGOs and activities the EC is financing with European taxpayers’ money.”

The official blog of the Hungarian Government has also noted that once the Trump Administration cut the money to USAID, Brussels “stepped in to fill the financial void, creating new funding pipelines” through programmes, like the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) programme, which bankrolls a number of groups tied to George Soros and his influential network. It also stated: “This form of influence brokering represents a clear case of political corruption, where taxpayers’ money is funnelled into a network of NGOs that serve as unofficial political operatives for Brussels. In Hungary alone, EUR 13 million has been allocated to activist groups working against the democratically-elected government.”

This article was first published in Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) Strategic Alert weekly newsletter (Volume 39, No. 10) on March 6, 2025.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das